Bushs Reading First Is Working - Road to the Middle Class

EVERYONE is disappointed by the Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Act. It was bushwhacked by Sen. Ted Kennedy and the vital school-choice reforms were ripped out.

But don’t forget the phonics reading program, "Reading First." It is working, and just in the way intended.

In City Journal Sol Stern tells how in a tale of two school districts.

One of the districts, in Richmond, Virginia, is a classic inner-city disaster.

Until 2001, Richmond’s student test scores were among Virginia’s worst. Only five of the district’s 51 schools achieved the status of full state accreditation.

But in 2001, Richmond switched to a phonics-based reading program.

By the time Reading First funds were available in 2002, Richmond was already up and running with a phonics-based reading program called Voyager Universal Literacy. The district channeled the modest $450,000 Reading First grant into a handful of its lowest-performing schools. But the principles of scientific reading instruction took hold throughout the district.

The results were dramatic. Since switching to a phonics-based reading program in 2001,

Richmond’s test scores have skyrocketed. By 2003, the number of the district’s schools achieving full state accreditation had climbed to 22. The next year, it rose to 39 and has now reached 44.

Next door to Richmond is the rich suburban Fairfax school district, but with black students who aren’t doing so well. Well, who cares about them! You’d be surprised.

Richmond’s third-grade reading scores are closing in on wealthy Fairfax’s scores for all its students, 79 percent of whom passed the third-grade reading test in 2005. Since enacting its reforms, Richmond has moved from 114th in the state in reading (out of 132 districts) to 50th, compared with Fairfax’s 36th.

Imagine! The poor kids in Richmond are doing almost as well as the rich kids in Fairfax. Why is that, do you think?

Fairfax uses a "whole language" reading method, and people have noticed. According to activists Maria Casby Allen and Rick Nelson:

“Richmond scores rose dramatically after schools adopted science-based reading programs four years ago,” whereas Fairfax “was eligible for federal and state Reading First funding but objected to the science-based reading component.”

Fairfax, you see, uses a reading instruction system that has absolutely no confirmation in science-based research and is damned if it is going to change its failing reading program for one that been tested in peer-reviewed scientific research.

This tale of two school districts has unfolded something like Reading First’s framers had hoped. One district implementing Reading First principles showed dramatic reading improvement in its low-performing schools. As the good news spread, some parents and teachers in another district wanted to know why their schools weren’t using the methods that were working magic elsewhere. Nelson and Allen failed to convince district officials, but they’re not giving up. “Parents everywhere should compare the performance on third-grade tests of Reading First schools and other schools—then publicize the results,” says Nelson. “Parents should also ask questions such as: ‘What are your state and locality doing to train teachers in science-based reading instruction?’ ”

All this is going on below the media radar, and maybe it’s just as well. Meanwhile another generation of children is being flushed down the toilet.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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